My work focuses on the fantastic and the peculiar. It grows out of an interest in animals, myth, and the human tendency to anthropomorphize.

This thesis paper explores the mixed-media MFA installation show, Family Secrets: The Secrets That Lie Within. The show is a culmination of the author’s work during her time in the MFA in Media Arts Program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The show uses a variety of mediums including sound, video and illustration to tell this tale of family secrets and betrayal. As a young child, the author thought her family was perfect. They gathered every week at her grandparents’ house and were very close, or so she thought. As she started to move into adulthood, the idyllic childhood seemed like a distant memory. A series of events happened that changed her family dynamic forever. In the show, Family Secrets, viewers are led through a series of scenes taken from the author’s life. Each room reveals a little more until you are faced with the family’s biggest secret.

This paper explores the `creative' process of postmemory in relation to family photographs, story telling, the absence of memory, and the subsequent construction of new and elastic family histories in my MFA thesis artwork. I define postmemory and how it relates to the limited number of existing photographs that document my family's experience as displaced persons and immigrants. I also discuss how literalist art has influenced the works in my thesis exhibition and outline the reasons for the absence of actual photographs in my work. Then, drawing from Freud's ideas of the condensation of dreams and the formation of screen memories, I discuss the relationship between historical family photographs, the memories elicited by them, and the act of forgetting to reveal the elasticity of truth in postmemory and how my work represents the beginnings of a personal understanding of a fragmented family history riddled with holes and unknowns. I also describe and discuss the two installation works found in my thesis exhibition, which are titled Descendant and Lineage. Finally, I outline the influence of other artists and describe how these ideas are tied together in my artwork.

En estudios anteriores se ha mostrado que células CHO productoras de tPA sufren una alteración del estado metabólico cuando el cultivo es suplementado con una mezcla de glucosa y galactosa. Este cambio se caracteriza por la reincorporación de lactato a la célula, pero su destino metabólico no ha sido determinado aún. Para comprender las condiciones que permiten la utilización de lactato como fuente de carbono se realizaron cuatro experimentos en cultivo batch con distintas combinaciones de glucosa y galactosa. Cuando el medio es suplementado solamente con glucosa se observa una producción sostenida de lactato. En cambio, en las condiciones con glucosa y galactosa se ve que primero se utiliza exclusivamente glucosa y se produce lactato, y una vez que se agota esta fuente de carbono comienza el consumo de galactosa junto a lactato. Al comparar mediante análisis de flujos metabólicos los estados de las células con y sin alteración metabólica, se observa un cambio en la distribución de flujos involucrados en el metabolismo del piruvato. Cuando la tasa específica de consumo de la fuente de carbono principal es baja no se produce suficiente piruvato para que las células mantengan sus requerimientos energéticos. Este resultado es consistente con los entregados por el modelo dinámico del metabolismo de glucosa y galactosa desarrollado en este trabajo. Inicialmente en los cultivos se observan flujos intracelulares altos, los cuales disminuyen lenta pero continuamente hasta alcanzar una condición en que no se produce suficiente piruvato para mantener el metabolismo energético de la célula. El consumo de lactato es posible en cultivos suplementados con glucosa y galactosa debido a que la célula alcanza condiciones intra y extracelulares específicas que permiten la inversión de la reacción catalizada por la enzima lactato dehidrogenasa y del gradiente que impulsa transporte de lactato. La evidencia encontrada en este trabajo sugiere que durante el consumo de glucosa se produce piruvato en exceso lo que lleva su acumulación y posterior conversión hacia lactato el cual se acumula también en el interior de la célula. Las altas concentraciones de lactato en el medio intracelular y la acidificación de éste debido a la glicólisis promueven el flujo del ácido láctico hacia el exterior de la célula mediante el transportador de monocarboxilatos. Cuando comienza el consumo de galactosa, el cual es más lento que el de glucosa, la concentración de piruvato, lactato y H+ disminuye permitiendo la inversión de la dirección de transporte del transportador y de la enzima lactato dehidrogenasa, promoviendo el consumo de lactato. Mediante el análisis de flujos metabólicos se determinó que en esta etapa del cultivo la mayoría de los recursos celulares y el ácido láctico son utilizados para mantener el metabolismo energético lo que explica también la disminución de la proliferación celular observada. Los resultados obtenidos indican que las concentraciones de piruvato, H+, lactato intra y extracelular, el estado RedOx y su evolución en el tiempo son los responsables en determinar la dirección del metabolismo del lactato. El entendimiento de la vía del lactato permitiría nuevos diseños de medio de cultivo, en los cuales se produzcan concentraciones menores de lactato. En cultivos donde el lactato es consumido o producido en una nueva tasa se observa una viabilidad extendida y por lo tanto en estas condiciones es factible alcanzar mayores niveles de producción de proteína recombinante.

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This is a novel about the way individuals can and do operate in a world controlled by larger power structures. It is interested in how people can effect change in this world, often in ways they do not plan. It explores the inability of the individual to control the world around them. The novel features a large cast of characters moving through a world that is dying. Earth’s climate is warming at a rate that will make it uninhabitable for humans. The specifics of this catastrophe are never explored. Rather, the novel concerns itself with people who are reacting to it, and how their reactions ultimately do more harm than good.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects on U.S. textile and apparel imports of the quantitative restrictions imposed under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) (1995-2005), the post-ATC U.S. safeguard quotas on 21 categories of Chinese textile and apparel products (2006-2008), and no quantitative restrictions on U.S. textile and apparel imports (2009-2010). Data were sourced from the Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA) in the U.S. Department of Commerce, the GeoDist dataset from the Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII), and the United Nations Commodity Trade (U.N. Comtrade) database. In this research, three gravity equations were developed and estimated based on the existing gravity model. The first gravity equation was estimated to assess the effects of the independent variables commonly included in gravity models on the total value of U.S. textile and apparel imports from 187 exporting countries with a scaled dependent variable and from 177 without it. The result of the first gravity equation indicated that distance and the per capita GDPs of the exporting countries, exchange rates, and the total GDPs of the exporting countries are statistically significant and have the expected signs in the model with the scaled dependent variable. The second gravity equation was estimated to access the overall effect of the presence or absence of quotas and VERs on U.S. textile and apparel import quantity from the 187 exporting countries. The results from the second gravity model showed that the presence or absence of quotas or VERs is significant and has an unexpected positive sign because the United States tended to impose quotas and VERs on textile and apparel products that it imported in large amounts. The third gravity equation was estimated to assess trade creation and trade diversion effect of the quota and VER levels of U.S. textile and apparel imports with separate equations by product types considering the endogeneity by applying instrumental variables. The result from the third gravity equation showed that the quota and VER level is significant for fabric, apparel, and made-up products with expected signs but the variable is not significant for yarn products. These findings suggest that U.S. textile and apparel imports from the exporting countries limited by quotas and VERs on U.S. textile and apparel imports increased more than rest of world (ROW) imports from those countries as the quota and VER levels on U.S textile and apparel imports increased. Therefore, trade creation occurred between the United States and the exporting countries as the total SME quota or VER levels on those imports increased during the ATC and safeguard period. However, these findings show the demand of yarn as intermediates does not increase much in the United States; therefore, the increase of the total yarn quota or VER level has less of an effect on the yarn imports than other product types. / Ph. D.

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This thesis explores the evolution of my artwork with synthetic materials through influences of the Minimalist and Process Artists of the 1960's and 1970's, inspiration from natural forms, and my exploration of concrete painting. Each work reveals discoveries of different processes and materials, accelerating the creation of new works. It is my hope this thesis will inform viewers about the process and concepts that my work embodies.